Despite draft day nerves, Rhyne Howard excited for next step in career

Rhyne Howard was visibly shaking when she stepped in front of the camera for an interview with ESPN’s Holly Rowe.

The Cleveland, TN native was the face of Kentucky Women’s Basketball throughout her entire four-year career in Lexington, earning countless awards and making over a dozen All-American teams. She came to UK as a five-star recruit, but with a quiet and sometimes cautious personality. Over the years, she grew into her superstardom, coming out of her shell and thoroughly embracing the “Crown Her” motto that UK Athletics ran with for her multiple Player of the Year campaigns.

But when Rowe asked Howard to describe her feelings after getting drafted No. 1 overall in the 2022 WNBA Draft on Monday night, it felt like Howard was back in Lexington for her first Kentucky press conference as a freshman. Not in the sense that she didn’t want to say anything, but in the sense that she simply couldn’t find the right words to describe what just happened. The Atlanta Dream moved up two spots ahead of the draft in order to select Howard, making her the first top-two pick in Kentucky WBB history.

“I’m shaking right now,” Howard said during the live broadcast after getting drafted as a slight tremble broke through her smile. “It’s hard to believe. This is a dream come true and I’m glad — it’s real. I don’t know.”

Howard leaves Kentucky as one of the program’s greatest players. She finished second all-time — male or female — in career points scored with 2,290. Ever since she stepped on campus, her path to the WNBA felt inevitable. The program hadn’t seen a player more dominant than Howard in roughly 40 years, since Valerie Still was gracing the hardwood in the late 1970s and early ’80s.

Basketball will still be basketball for Howard as she makes the leap to the pros, but the stakes will be much higher moving forward. The Atlanta Dream drafted her with the intention to mold the future of the franchise around her. The year was 2018 the last time Atlanta posted a winning record.

“I personally do think I’m ready just because I’m so competitive, like I mentioned before,” Howard said during her post-draft interview. “But I am ready to just keep improving on how hard I’m working, just the little things that teams are going to need. So, I personally think I’m very versatile, so whatever position I’m playing, I like to match for those positions, and if they need me to work on something specific, so whatever the case may be, I’m willing to do it.”

Howard said her goals for the 2022 season will be to win Rookie of the Year and play for a winning team. The Dream used its other selection in the draft on Michigan’s Naz Hillmon, who is friends with Howard and was considered one of the country’s top college players a season ago. Atlanta took Arizona’s Aari McDonald in last year’s draft, making up a young core that could take some time to get acclimated. Only four players from last season’s roster will suit up again in 2022.

“I just want to do that by my competitive spirit and the will to never give up and always fight and just maintain my composure and stay calm, cool, and collected,” Howard said of how she expects her college success to translate to the next level. “I think that’s what really helped me to become successful and I just really want to have an impact on the team, like when I get there and just continue to make everyone better.”

Howard’s most desirable attribute at Kentucky was how she made those around her better, whether it was intentional or not. A player of her caliber draws the majority of the defensive attention, which allowed her teammates to take advantage of the extra space. Playing alongside a team of talented WNBA players should only make her more effective in that regard. Whether that leads to immediate success with the Dream is yet to be seen, but Howard has spent the last four years preparing herself for the moment.

The 2022 WNBA season will begin on May 6, with the Atlanta Dream opening its schedule on May 7 against the Dallas Wings.